(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/60 sec @ f/16)

I took this picture of a 1933 Plymouth hood ornament during the 2011 Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village. The gentleman who owned the car gave me some information on the history and evolution of Plymouth hood ornaments. The 1933 had the flying figure and by 1934 they had switched to a stylized sailing ship. The key bit of information was that the 1933 ornament actually used gold in the medallion. True or not I thought the ornament was pretty cool. I took the shot with a 105mm macro lens that I had rented. I have a couple other shots which used a more open aperture, but the field of focus was too thin. I closed it down to f16 for this shot and managed to get more of the ornament in focus. Sometimes razor thin DOF looks cool, but for this sort of shot I prefer to see more detail.

Processing of the image was fairly simple. The first thing I did was give the image more of a square crop. There was too much dark space at the top of the image which didn’t really add anything of value. Similarly there was a dark corner in the bottom right that also didn’t really add anything. After cropping I used a HSL layer in Photoshop to remove some of the green and blue from the reflections of the trees and sky on the hood and used a layer mask to restore the color to the medallion. In general when I’m shooting cars outside, I’ll try to remove some of the color from any chrome. I prefer that my chrome be more silver than whatever color is being reflected in it.

Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Nikon D700, Nikon 105mm f2.3 Macro, ISO 200, Exposure 1/30 sec @ f/16)

So, I went to the annual Motor Muster at Greenfield Village and came back with a shot of a … radio. Actually I do have some pictures of cars, but I think I’m hitting a block on my car photography. At this show I saw many of the same cars I saw last year (and the year before), and while I enjoy looking at them, I’m finding it harder to come up with interesting ways to shoot them. It’s hard to get a good shot of the entire car because there are generally people in the way so I tend to focus on details. However, after shooting details for so long I find myself mentally rejecting shots before I even take them because I remember taking something similar in the past. Anyway, the show was fun even if I didn’t get a large number of ‘keeper’ shots.

This image shows a 1937 Silvertone Console Radio. The radio was purchased in 1937 at a Sears in Highland Park, Michigan. The radio accompanied a 1937 car (whose make and model I don’t recall). I took this shot because I really liked the Art Deco style of the radio.

Processing was done in two stages. I did some initial work in Lightroom to increase the blacks and overall exposure and some minor cropping. The rest was done with Silver Efex Pro2 in Photoshop.

Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 27mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)

The shot you see above is from a 1963 Thunderbird convertible which was on display as part of the Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Not much more to say really, I just liked the simple pattern created by the fake vents. Minimal processing to produce the final image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

For more automobile detail images, please visit my ImageKind galleries.

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/500 sec @ f/13)

The Motor Muster at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan manages to get a great collection of automobiles. Many cars on display are ones that you would see (or would have seen) driving around your neighborhood. However, the show also gets a few cars which are more unique. One example is the Hudson Italia. This car grew out of a need for Hudson to offer a sporty car to compete with other manufacturers. I personally don’t find this particular car attractive when viewed whole, but I love some of the details. This particular shot shows an area just over the passenger side headlight. Looks vaguely like the Star Trek emblem to me! A couple of years ago I saw this car at a different car show and took this shot.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 114mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/100 sec @ f/10)

This past weekend I attended two car shows, each showcasing vintage automobiles. The first show that I went to was on Saturday and it was the annual ‘Motor Muster’ held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. The ‘Motor Muster’ is a huge event, with hundreds of cars, motorcycles and bicycles from past to present. While the show has some very nice cars, and the location at Greenfield Village is wonderful, it is disappointing in one regard because the show is laid out in such a way that you really can only see the fronts of most cars. Still, I was surprised that I came away with a large number of good shots this year.

What you see above, is the hood ornament of a 1936 Pontiac Master Six 2-Door Touring Sedan. I was able to lean over the rope to get a nice shot of the hood ornament. The yellow/cream color you see in the background is actually the body of a 1935 Cadillac. Sometimes it’s hard to get a good shot of a hood ornament in the field because you can’t always control the background. In this case, the positioning of the other car resulted in a perfect background to my shot.

Processing of this shot was minimal. There was some lint or other fuzzy things attached to the ornament, probably from a cleaning brush, so I cloned those out. I also darkened the hood of the car in the lower right corner. Other than that, some minor contrast and sharpening was all that was done to create the final image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

This image can be purchased.